Shari Barnett, Director of Media Services, Microsoft TV

In late May, Microsoft TV announced the beta release of its new Mediaroom Presentation Framework, which it says will allow content that is already available on the Web to be repurposed quickly and easily for interactive IPTV applications, including applications that allow for the "seamless blending" of a television show's broadcast and Web elements. Shari Barnett, Microsoft TV's director of media services, recently provided [itvt]'s Tracy Swedlow with an overview of the new release, covering such topics as its relationship to Microsoft Mediaroom's other application-development environments; how it works by exposing the markup language that powers Mediaroom's core user interface; Microsoft's plans to support multiple triggering standards in the Presentation Framework; the kinds of personal media and social networking applications that Microsoft expects the Presentation Framework to enable; and much more.

[itvt]: Could you tell us a little about your background, Shari? I understand you've been working at Microsoft for quite a long time, correct?

Barnett: Yes. I've actually been there since 1999. I was with WebTV for the first couple of years, and then got absorbed into Microsoft TV. So I've been here an amazingly long time--much longer than I first thought I would be. But the work continues to be interesting and I keep having interesting new roles, so there you go...

My background was originally in film and video. I was a producer for a decade-and-a-half, making commercials.

But I came to Microsoft originally to work with this brand new thing called DVR--back then, everyone was wondering, "Ooh! What are we going to do with this technology?" In fact, my role here has almost always been about looking at new technology and seeing how it can be applied to the television experience going forward.

[itvt]: And today you're in charge of "media services"? What does that mean?

Barnett: Yes, my group is called Media Services. That's a very generic name, but it gives us the flexibility to do all kinds of fun stuff. The main thing we do is run the Mediaroom Application Developer Program--and, in fact, we just released a major beta to the Program members: the Mediaroom Presentation Framework. But the other big part of what we do is that we get to envision what kinds of experiences our new technologies are going to enable for our customers. We work with third parties to produce applications that basically take the nascent platform to the edge of the envelope--and sometimes beyond--in order to get an idea of what the heck a real, two-way, broadband, always-on connection to the TV means for the TV-viewing experience.

[itvt]: How does this process of envisioning new TV experiences work? Do you guys first come up with an idea that you'd like the platform to do such-and-such, and then reach out to your third-party developers? Or do the developers first pitch ideas to you about how they'd like to use and enhance the platform?

Barnett: It's pretty organic. We first work internally with our development people to define the features that we want to have in the platform. But, from working with third-party content providers and developers, we already have a pretty good sense of the kinds of experiences they want to create, and we bring all that back to our internal developers. Sometimes we provide them with aspirational storyboards and things like that, so that they can really understand the kinds of underpinnings we need to have in the platform. So they get down to work, and then we reach out to the content providers and the developers in our program and work with them to actually build some applications for the platform.

[itvt]: Now Microsoft actually has a number of different application development platforms for interactive TV, correct?

Barnett: Yes. For a long time we've had remote terminal services--we term that "Remote Desktop Protocol" or RDP. You can build pretty much any kind of application using RDP--what it essentially allows you to do is to run a session on a PC, and then see the on-screen results of that session on a television set. It's basically about being able to tunnel into a Windows service at the headend. For things like letting subscribers look at their bills and review and upgrade their service it's the perfect platform to have. However, the biggest problem with the RDP platform is that it doesn't scale very well for other types of feature-rich scenarios. Every time somebody is using an application on it, you're essentially running a session on a PC. So if you have a lot of people who are using it at the same time, you need a lot of horsepower. However, as I mentioned, it really is perfect for certain applications.

We also have a rudimentary browser that we released last year. Some people are using it to develop applications today. It doesn't match the flexibility and speed of the rest of our service. However, again it is great for certain things--like, for example, the Flickr app that AT&T recently made available to their U-verse customers, which lets you go out and look at your photographs on the Flickr Web site.

[itvt]: And this browser supports streaming video, correct?

Barnett: Yes. It can stream video, using Windows Media. Because it's a browser, it can go out and pull in content from a URL. It can do some nice things, but it has some limitations.

[itvt]: And because of these limitations and the limitations of RDP, you recently released a new development platform called the Presentation Framework...

Barnett: Yes. Jim Baldwin--who heads up our applications engineering team--and his crew came up with the Presentation Framework, which is a different approach to creating applications. Developers, using off-the- shelf ASP.NET development tools like Visual Studio, can just go out and start developing for our platform. The way I think about it is that it uses the same graphical vocabulary as our core interface itself. That means that it supports transparencies and overlays, and lets you develop applications with lots of video windows. It also has great performance: it's just as snappy as the rest of our user interface. And the content used in an application can be pulled from Web services. This is great for folks like content providers who have really rich Web services--they can create applications that automatically refresh as their Web content refreshes.

[itvt]: And the Web content is pulled in through RSS feeds, correct?

Barnett: Well, I'd say RSS is the easiest. You can pull content from Web pages, you can pull in streaming video, etc. Think of it this way: you've got this always-on broadband pipe coming into your TV, and so your TV now has the same kind of connectivity as your PC--and all the things that that connectivity enables to come to your PC, can now come to your TV. You can pull in anything you want from any Web service, and your application then tells that information how to display itself on the screen.

I'll give you an example of one of the proof-of-concept applications we created that I think was a fairly successful use of the Mediaroom Presentation Framework. We worked with TNT and NASCAR, and we got footage of a race that was run last year: the Pepsi Daytona 400. Now, if you're a real NASCAR fan, there's a subscription-based service, called TrackPass, that's available online. What this online service does is it lets you, while you're watching a race, put your laptop on your lap or sit at your PC, and access driver cams in real time from inside a bunch of the cars that are taking part in the race. It also lets you listen to each of the drivers talking to their pit crew, and it presents you with a mock-up of their tachometer and their speedometer and of all the other kinds of telemetry stats that the drivers have in their cars. So we took all that information that was available through the online service, and we synched it with the video of the race itself. So that, while you're watching the broadcast of the race, you can pull up a picture-in-picture display of what any of the drivers is seeing inside and outside their cars. Basically, you're watching them racing around the track and you're also watching what they're seeing out of their windows, and you're listening to them talking to their pit crew and you're occasionally seeing updated information on how fast they're going and what not. It's really cool! The application also lets you do a lot of the standard interactive TV things: like accessing the drivers' standings and their bios, or watching on-demand interviews with them, and things like that. But what I think is the most interesting feature of this application is the way it supports real-time Web streaming, synched with the broadcast.

This is the kind of stuff that changes the idea of TV from just being a broadcast that's blasted to you, to being something viewers can personalize according to how they want to watch something. It also illustrates how the Presentation Framework allows you to take a lot of the investment that sports broadcasters and other content providers are making in their Web services and leverage all that for television--in fact use it to go far beyond television. It really makes for a much richer experience.

Now, I think this kind of thing is best used judiciously: I go way back in interactive TV--I was even at Silicon Gaming, Inc., working on Full Service Network--and I'm a true believer, but only to a certain point. In other words, I'm often very happy to flop down on my couch and just be told a story. But I have to say that, for example, at the end of "Grey's Anatomy," when it says "Go online to see deleted scenes" or "Go online to hear an interview with Patrick Dempsey," I would really like to be able to do that then and there, and not have to walk over to my PC and go to ABC.com in order to do that. Well, that's exactly what you can do with the Presentation Framework: you could create an application for "Grey's Anatomy" that would let you get show-related content that currently exists only online and use it to enrich the experience on your television set.

[itvt]: Could you describe exactly what you did with Mediaroom in order to enable it to work with Web-sourced content like this? Is there an entirely new API layer?

Barnett: Essentially, yes. We exposed a bunch of controls--"gadgets," as the guys in dev like to call them--that are similar to API's and that allow you to display on screen, over the imagery. That was actually all stuff that already existed. It's essentially the markup language that we use to describe the core user interface: the guide, the main menuing system and stuff like that. So we exposed that markup language in a measured way, so to speak, and we then allowed third-party developers to use these controls to create other kinds of experiences that are literally extensions of the core user interface. So they're very seamless and they blend beautifully, yet you have a lot of flexibility to design your application however you want to.

[itvt]: How close is the Presentation Framework to being generally available? I know you've already released it to around 150 companies, correct?

Barnett: The platform will actually be released as a client-server product later this year. The beta of the client code went out to all our developers in June. So they can already start building and previewing applications, and they'll soon be able to start trialing them on lab systems--and eventually in consumers' homes, as soon as our customers start to deploy the software. So you should start seeing a lot of Presentation Framework-based applications in 2009, because the developers are building them now, and will be starting to deploy them after our customers get the software.

[itvt]: Do the developers have to learn any new skills in order to work with the Presentation Framework?

Barnett: Not really. This is really all about ASP.NET--about Web technologies that most developers are very familiar with. One of the things a lot of the developers who are working with the Presentation Framework are very excited about is that it fits right in with how they generally develop applications.

[itvt]: Now how many applications have been deployed to date that are based on RDP or your browser?

Barnett: There are around 50 different applications deployed worldwide right now, that were built on either RDP or the browser.

[itvt]: Do you expect most of those applications will be redone in the Presentation Framework environment?

Barnett: Yes. In fact, we're currently writing a white paper on how to build browser applications so that they can be easily converted to the Presentation Framework. I think, ultimately, most folks are going to want to convert their applications to the Presentation Framework environment because of its fast performance. Converting applications is actually pretty easy--especially if you build the application knowing that it's going to be converted later on. A lot of the development partners in our program--and our customers too--are really very smart developers: they had a heads-up on where we were going with all this, and most of them have developed their browser applications so that they can be easily converted.

[itvt]: Now, the Presentation Framework doesn't make the browser and/or the RDP obsolete, correct?

Barnett: No. I would look at this more along the lines of what are the different strengths that each of the Mediaroom Application Environments has.

The Mediaroom Presentation Framework layer lets developers overlap video, imagery and text on top of the traditional TV experience in a compelling way. It also allows for Web services to integrate in a way that complements the overall TV experience. On the other hand, the Mediaroom Browser allows service providers to build customized Web-based applications--applications like bill review and also current information services for weather, breaking news and sports scores--while the RDP layer supports technology that allows service providers to offer views of Windows-based applications that can be displayed on the TV.

[itvt]: Other than applications that bring existing Web services to the television screen, what kinds of apps are you expecting the Presentation Framework to be used to develop? Do you have in mind any "killer apps" that could really take advantage of the platform?

Barnett: I'm really not sure what kinds of "killer apps" are going to come out of this: we just take guesses at--and I think our customers are also taking good guesses at--the kinds of applications that people will be interested in. However, I am seeing a lot of applications that are similar to the interactive TV apps that have been created in the past. I've watched BSkyB very closely over the last nine years, and I've seen them try to deploy everything--literally everything--from shopping to ETV to games to wagering. And some of it has worked and some of it hasn't. But the big difference now--and this is why I'm convinced that we will succeed--is that the technology is much more advanced. It's no longer broadcast down and limited backchannel up. You've got essentially a unicast, two-way, very high speed connection, which, among other things, makes a huge difference with video capability.

[itvt]: Are you supporting triggering?

Barnett: Yes, we're going to support triggering--in fact, a really open version of triggering, where people can use whatever kind of trigger they want to use. Essentially, we're going to develop the Presentation Framework so that it can listen for just about any kind of trigger, and then respond appropriately. We have a rudimentary version of this capability coming out with the first release of the software, and the capability will be enhanced over time. As you know, triggering is what allows you to do applications that are synched with broadcast video. Right now, we allow you to do applications that are synched to a program--just not down to the second, which is the kind of capability you'd need if you were developing an enhanced TV application for "Jeopardy" or something like that. But right now you can certainly do real-time polling and things like that during a program if you want to.

We want to support all the triggering standards that are out there today--whether that's MHEG or EBIF or OpenTV triggers. We don't want to get tied into one particular standard. That's the beauty of having a server-based application framework. You don't have to rely on a software stack that's sitting in the client and that only knows how to do one thing. You have a really versatile platform that you can use in lots of different ways and that's not tied into anything in particular. Most of the application is running on the server side--which is the beauty of having a broadband connection too. You don't need to download an application to the set-top box and then run it from that client: you can essentially run it as a server application, and then have the client display--really quickly--what's going on.

[itvt]: On the other hand, as you know, there is a lot of interest right now in applications that take advantage of the DVR to support rich media. We recently interviewed Scott Higgins of DISH Network, and he was outlining their plans to offer more of those kinds of applications. Are you doing anything to support those kinds of apps?

Barnett: Yes, definitely. After all, our standard reference assumption is that you have a DVR available. Supporting applications that take advantage of the fact that a DVR is available is definitely part of the Presentation Framework. In fact, even in the beta kit, one of the controls you have is for playing assets that are sitting on the DVR--so you can definitely make those assets part of your application. However, as far as actually downloading an entire application to the DVR, like DISH is talking about doing, so that you can run it on the client--that's just a completely different model from the one we are using. Satellite doesn't have much of a backchannel: it inherently doesn't have major two-way connectivity. So that's the kind of thing they have to do.

In general, our view is that you want to make the client thinner and thinner, if you can, and to do as much heavy lifting as possible using the network (and software). You don't want to end up making the client bigger and bigger--and more and more expensive. As bandwidth increases--which it will, over time--it doesn't make a lot of sense to make this box that's sitting in the consumer's home do all this work. Our customers believe that they're going to be able to continually increase the bandwidth in their networks, and so the thin-client path seems to be the right way for them, and for us, to go.

[itvt]: Now, the press materials you sent to us mentioned that the Presentation Framework could be used to enable personal media portals on the TV. Could you explain that a little?

Barnett: Well, that could actually mean a lot of different things--we were really just using it as an example of the kinds of things that this kind of environment will allow you to do. But let me try to get more specific. Next year, we'll be supporting the ability to identify yourself to your TV service. Now, nobody wants to log into their TV. But what if, by logging into your TV you got something extra, like a more personalized experience? For example, if you could go directly to a personal folder of your DVR recordings that contained just your recordings--so that you could find your recorded programs without having to rifle through your whole family's recordings--you might have to identify yourself, but you'd have done it for a really good reason. Then, now that you've identified yourself, a whole realm of possibilities would be opened up. Because your television service knows who you are, maybe when you go to "favorites" you could see a multiscreen display of all your favorite channels--not your household's favorite channels. Or you could access your contacts list or your online friends list--because your TV service now views you as an individual, rather than just as a household. Needless to say, on the advertising side being able to know who specifically is currently using the TV in a household--and being potentially able to target advertising to that person specifically--is very valuable.

[itvt]: Will each member of a TV household actually have to log in, using their remote control or some other keypad device?

Barnett: It depends on what apps are available that might require self-identification. You may not log in until you activate an app that absolutely requires that to be useful, like a social networking service. Unless the app knows who you are, it can't connect you to your profile, and hence to your contacts, on that service. I love the idea of everyone having their remote keypad number that they key in before they watch TV, but that's not realistic and doesn't take into account group watching.

[itvt]: Could you talk a little more about the potential of the Presentation Framework to enable social networking services on the TV?

Barnett: Yes. All that comes from being able to identify yourself to your TV service as an individual rather than as a household--just as, when you're on your PC, once you identify yourself, your contacts are available to chat and to share your social pages with. We've actually demo'd this capability. We mocked up Spaces pages--Spaces being Microsoft's MySpace-Facebook social community application--for several people, and showed how you could navigate to your friends' Spaces pages via your TV and chat with them live, using your remote control number pad as a triple tap input.

That kind of stuff is very possible--though whether or not that kind of thing is really going to work as an application in the form that we built it remains to be seen. I'm not claiming that we demo'd the ultimate killer app by any means, but we were just trying to make the point that, once the individual consumer can identify him or herself, it's possible to connect that person through their TV to their online world.

[itvt]: And this sort of thing, of course, can be used to build communities of interest around live television programming...

Barnett: Absolutely. A lot of this is already going on online, so obviously it would be nice to have it directly on your television, within the actual show environment, instead of having to get up and walk over to your PC. In general, we're encouraging our customers to think in terms of using the TV to offer more of the variety of services and content that is available today through the Internet. They've got this broadband connection to the end-user. They don't just have to be limited to broadcast and VOD content. Suddenly all kinds of content and services are fair game, if they're willing to go out and make them available.

[itvt]: Who are some of the developers you're currently working with?

Barnett: We're currently working with over 150 companies globally, including content providers, application developers, and our service provider customers like AT&T and British Telecom. We've nearly tripled the number of companies developing applications since we launched the Microsoft Mediaroom Application Environments in 2007. The program is actually technically a closed one: we built the program for our customers, and our customers then ask us when they want to admit a new company to the program. To give you a couple of examples, we're working with ES3 in Toronto, with emuse in the UK, and with ChoiceStream in the US. The list of companies that are members of the program and actively building applications for Mediaroom right now just goes on and on.

[itvt]: What kind of impact do you expect Microsoft's acquisition of Navic to have on your Media Services group?

Barnett: We believe this acquisition has the long-term potential to benefit Microsoft Mediaroom service provider customers through Navic's ad inventory management solutions.

[itvt]: Microsoft also recently announced a significant expansion of its Mediaroom ecosystem partnerships. Is your group working with those companies now?

Barnett: Yes. At NXTcomm, we actually announced the addition of six new companies to the Microsoft Mediaroom partner ecosystem: HP, Tech Mahindra, and 180Squared, which are systems integrators; Agilent and IneoQuest, which are Quality of Service assurance companies; and Harris, which provides encoding solutions. A lot of these guys have become members of the Application Developer program, so that they can build the customer-facing side of any applications and systems that warrant it that they might create with our operator customers.

We also announced, by the way, that Microsoft Mediaroom is now powering connected TV services on more than 2 million televisions worldwide. It took Mediaroom 18 months to reach its first million TV's and only five months more to reach its second million. We're on a roll, and we hope that the exciting new applications our platforms enable will continue to differentiate our customers' services and get consumers excited about them.

URL: Microsoft Mediaroom

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